THE ORDER

By Lenny Tocco

A fun read. Find a quiet place and enjoy the unexpected humor and

conversational style of this author's very first novel and telling. It's a look at a

fictional Italian family taking place over a weekend in 1988 in St. Louis,

Missouri. The book was born of love and looks deeply into several love

connections but targets an

• Language: English
• Publisher: LENNY TOCCO
• Release date: Dec 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798218123796

Book preview

For my friends and my Family

What is to follow is an account of factual recollections with a fictional twist on a story created within my mind, faction, with some action. I just needed a place to start. Embedded within the story, I questioned the thoughts and perceptions of the characters:

Are the eyes truly the windows to the soul? Or is this a window that can’t be seen through? Maybe if we could just get a snapshot. How does each of us process what we see and how do we assume it may be the view from another’s eyes? How do we explore the impossible task to see another one’s view or perception? Most of us feel this task is futile but it isn’t. Is it so impossible to know what someone thinks?

Or is it maybe probable to assume we can be right some of the time?

What do people think and how do we describe people?

Two unwinnable topics.

Unwinnable. What a strange word. To not win, therefore not worth discussion?

I just needed a place to start.

We can’t describe people? What do we have to talk about?

Words that are words but can’t be used anymore. No descriptor comments for separation, no first impressions of someone, no initial thoughts? Never a verbal comment for fear of confrontation contested by a group, unwinnable in the argument.

This book is just to make you think, it’s just a ride. I only want to take you for a short ride and include some humor to make it fun. That is all. It’s what we all do at the mall, it’s what we think, but do not say. It’s all in fun, these idiosyncrasies that separate us.

I just needed a place to start.

My concerns of holding a reader were that Millions of sentences have portrayed millions of people, things, and circumstances, and millions if not trillions of books. Not one sentence written that hasn’t been executed already. There are very few surprises in movies or theaters or songs. What’s worth making that has already been made or painted or said, or naturally, written? At this time what do we expect as a people, under these conditions? What possibly could surprise you? Mothers poison their daughters, daughters murder their husbands, and even fathers choke their children to death. Truth. Reality. Shocking. What a waste to construct a fear-raising sentence that already exists as a reality! I thought of the more eloquent attempts by the named authors to portray a more healthy or Godly side of the spectrum:

The father that hands down the keys to the family business to the oldest sibling to continue the legacy he started or The mother fluffing up the veil on her daughter’s head, the same veil that was used to marry her FIVE older sisters..., not true? Well, I’ve written the sentence it has had to have happened! Then I came across this:

Write what you know, write what you love, and be honest - Stephen King

I found a place to start:

How about this one, and try to remember it:

The brand new Momma with the brand new infant snuggling close nose to nose, quiet time with the smell of life, new life, the back and forth noses gently very gently rub back and forth and warm and both their faces cooing and smiling, mother and infant warm wet fragrant kisses, muted audio, perfect. It’s safe here, it’s a place you have to be reminded to exit from.

Try to find that place, that peace in your lives

So it is thought, so it is written,...me.

After that quote from Stephen King, I wrote for six months straight and this is the story it started:

Anthony and Mitzy are sons and daughters of Good Italian People. Their parents and grandparents have bred firstly love into their Italian minds and souls but recklessness and dishonesty and rage have leaked in from discrimination as immigrants. The discrimination has bred an Order in them that follows generations still today. They are young and in love, and they follow the path that has been set in front of them. They collide in Chapter 21.

With Love comes hatred and despising.

The recklessness and dishonesty are quickly divided by and between the families into those who choose the path of good, the thems, and those that will not, the theys. Detroit pushes and manipulates the families by demanding the doing of tasks and the promise of payback and protection.

The parents, Antonio and Bessie own a modest wholesale distributorship on Produce Row and pushed back against the life of the discriminated Italians to become accepted and legitimate. Some of their children, however, were consumed by the second generation of continued harassment and surrendered to the accusations, and emerged as Italian Gangsters.

Louie and Duda LaRocco choose the good path and their love emanated to their children and two more of our characters, Tony and Sal, and their lives in North St. Louis. They are brothers bonded by love and determined to stay the course and not cross the line into the theys.

Our story is just a weekend in 1988 and opens with Tony seeing the love of his life for the very first time…the situations that follow are unthinkable and the choices and priorities in their lives become paramount…this is where I chose to start....

One

Her

She was just 18 if you know what I mean , she was the hottest thing he’d ever seen... she had oceans for eyes, he was a sailboat caught up in ‘em... no sound... no contact... for hours... but just seconds... wow!... Who is that? Oh my God, she was in trouble... don’t touch her! He couldn’t imagine her scent through the glass but his nose tried!

He was an animal. He knew she was an animal too... she was his kind... he knew she liked him... she had to! He was somebody, a catch, money, power...

HE was Tony LaRocco!

She seemed untouchable, like all the great ones, a trophy, but she didn’t realize it...yet. He needed her and knew it in his heart. It seemed a tough kill. He couldn’t have her, he had to have her...

Was she 18? Or 19?... didn’t really matter... he hadn’t stopped looking... he was in her head, she in his... he was behind those eyes deep inside through to the back of her head... still ninety feet away through the glass, the World rotated, seconds were hours, lost, forgotten... where was he and what was he doing just 30 seconds ago? Have you ever wondered if Heaven knew this time was coming and they were all watching to see what direction it would go? Wiser men have said that seconds here and seconds there change the fate of the future forever. He would not let the moment get away. Was he doing things right? Did he realize the situation? No, probably not... when LOVE hits, it hits like Mike Tyson... it’s a blur, it’s now, time stops, he couldn’t get over this beast, shooting distance for sure, and Tony was a hunter! Right or wrong something is happening to him and it wasn’t some fairytale, it wasn’t some cupid moment... this was atomic!

He continued to stare through the large panes of glass of the showroom window from his store... measuring and sizing her every movement. She was in plain view and the background was still weaving and spinning ever so slowly... mesmerizing... yeah, just ride the wave. Her presence excited the normally regular snapshot outside. Their eyes were locked. Customers were calling his name but Tony’s business was like a camel, it could’ve closed for three weeks and not needed any cash, so he didn’t hear them.

She centered the mosaic waves of orange and sunset yellows with the horizon separating the snapshot and the busy street movements blowing behind her. It was a thousand degrees. It was desert-like, radiating wavy lines of heat. He would never see another face. He would never touch another face. Her mouth was held ajar to outline a strong jawline, her hair long, brown, and breezing out and back. Her eyes looked from beneath her tilted head downward... wicked, almost evil, they were locked in a stare at him that took his breath away... his mouth was open also, he wanted to swallow her in, breathe her breath, touch her anywhere, feel her brunette mane of voluptuous hair... blowing... but a snapshot, the kaleidoscope spun in the foreground yet she was clear to him as if looking through binoculars, her tight, young facial features, strong, higher cheekbones, her face, and arms were the beautiful color of a deep California tan. She was a dark-haired beauty with that summer tan and those eyes just spinning a web on him!

He will have her, today, soon. Her white short sleeves were meticulously rolled up over her broad shoulders to expose her biceps, she snipped a little slot below her neck to give the tee a v neck... it was cool looking like James Dean, only a chick... Jane Dean? nahhhh. Her boobs were fabulous and big, maybe that’s why she constructed that v in her shirt. She had a tight, strong, young tummy, big strong hips, and beautiful thighs in short, tight shorts, she was sweating profusely but there was no sweat, maybe Tony was sweating? Her legs matched the summer tan up top and then the signature white socks messed up with a purpose just so... about four inches up the ankle highlighting the bare skin of her legs.

It completed the cool, bad-ass chick ensemble.

He must be sure not to let her get away, not to let anyone else get her first!

Who? Who? Who are you? And where did you come from?

He held his breath so as to pull the trigger purely... Stick a fork in Her, she was done!

Two

Sal and Tony

Tony usually rode with his brother, Sal. This day was an early morning run down to Produce Row to pick up cash from Noonzio. Noonzio’s people were from Berkeley and Ferguson and he connected Tony to anyone that didn’t already know Tony and the shop. Both Berkeley and Ferguson were in the county but just on the city lines, with rough neighborhoods, and rough high schools. There is good and bad in every scenario, every place, and everyone. The area around The Row boasted an element not found in the county, that is to say, it was city boys, hungry, maybe willing to do something unexpected due to some incident they had over the weekend. Plus, even the business owners, the good guys, may have had some beef or had a bad day also. It was just an unstirred pot of questionable characters. Sal was who he needed for that unexpected flat or car trouble in the wrong part of town. More importantly, it was also the wrong TIME of day. Early mornings were for meet-ups from the weekend "festivities’’. The area they were headed for was project poor, but proud, street driven, city boys ran in packs and there was no good place to be stuck down there. Understand that the TIME of day was most important of all. The TIME made it clearly evident why you were there and where you were going, especially with a vehicle such that Tony rolled. Tony was the man, just ask him, he was cunning, sneaky, and very, very smart about all things but most of all cash and numbers, but his big brother Sal? Sal hadn’t had breakfast and was just dying to give someone a beating on a moment’s notice, he lived to protect... and Tony never had that quality. If Tony rolled to the Row, he rolled with Sal and Sal wouldn’t have it any other way. It was The Order of things in their world.

And, that’s why Sal was there.

Three

Watermelon Sam

You see, The Row was Produce Row and it was just that, it was rows of docks inviting delivery trucks perching themselves in front of their individual business warehouses. The walkway was eight feet wide from the edge of the dock to the forbidden zone or warehouse. There was an imaginary line that wasn’t to be crossed into a man’s warehouse. The warehouses were dark crypts with black slippery shiny concrete, a mixture of spilled milk, stepped-on vegetables, the best of olive oils, rubber forklift marks, just mostly filth. Everyone wore black dress shoes.... well, not dress anymore, but good shoes, they retained the exact mixture of floor permanently embedded into their soles. Ah, but the smell! It was like the Garden of Eden over that imaginary line. Each row, each daily delivery hub, in a line separated only by the brick wall between two separate worlds of business. The Valentino’s had the bread, that means everything bread and baking, they were the only bread company on the Row, you were met with the smell of the bread billowing out from four or five stalls away. It made you lust for a bite of fresh bread or a hot dog bun, that’s what the Americans called it. A Valentino’s hot dog bun was about three inches thick and almost a foot long.... it was designed solely for the Salsiccia that the Gitto Bros. made fresh daily but not on the Row, they had their restaurant on the hill. Sue Slonicki married young Charlie Gitto and she was a cousin of Joe Valentino, so he naturally catered to them, he had to... it was how it was... it was The Order of things for the Italians. The Valentinos, like most on the Row, headed out early and had many stops on the hill.

Down from Valentino’s was Joe, there was a lot of Joe’s, this one was Joe Shaully and he was rich and Jewish and respected by the Italiani. The Italians get along with almost anybody that listens to them. Joe Shaully had no product in his solid brick oversized portal on the Row... he sold space. That’s right, Joe had the best refrigeration on the Row, massive. If you need to keep your stuff cold, and I mean really cold, Shaully’s was the place! He housed many of the licensed business’ overstocks and sudden surprise loads. He held products for many more of the new guys that didn’t have a location and worked out of their trucks... ship it directly to Shaully’s... they all knew the spot! Then you go pick your stuff up from Joe, who charged you out the ass! They would pass the fee along to their end-of-the-line, under-educated customers and say "how’s that for cold?’ I got the best refrigeration units back at my warehouse in the city",... meanwhile it was Joe all along.

Joe Shaully’s spot didn’t smell and the concrete wasn’t filthy. On the contrary, it was spotless.... and freezing even outside on the dock... it was like Superman’s hideout in the Arctic, with frozen air that made you back up. It loomed and swirled and chased you away as the giant stainless door that covered the entire entrance was triggered to open. There was a giant remote control with a green and red button hanging from what looked like an electrical cord that came from the Empire State Building.

It was common knowledge and well known amongst the Row that Watermelon Sam’s son was crushed in the closing of that giant stainless door. While Sam was loading his van, his boy backed up and stood on the imaginary line that separates the dock from the warehouse. At Shaully’s the line was not imaginary, it happened to be the path of the door and the boy was looking up, maybe picking his nose or singing along or whatever and the door caught him perfectly as he stood sideways, crushing his torso, clavicle, and head. He couldn’t have weighed 70 pounds and lost the battle to the stainless robotic crushing machine. His father Sam, works the Arch grounds now and around the Admiral, a tourist showboat offering shows and dances. He hawked his watermelons... ICE COLD watermelons! He screams and peddles Sam, Sam the Watermelon man! Get your ICE COLD Watermelons! to the tourists. The tourists just must see that muddy Mississippi along the giant unwalkable granite cobblestones. It’s a very tough route for Sam but he feels he deserves it for not keeping a better eye on his son... a father’s guilt festers and is never soothed, the boy died right on that imaginary line that same day.

And naturally, and not unexpectedly, who would think in a million years once the frozen fog clears and the gigantic door slowly and mechanically opens... Petey emerges. He’s not freezing or glad to be away from the frigid temps... he has no shirt on! He boasts a small gold cross on a necklace and smokes a little blunt of a cigar. He is Tony and Sal’s cousin, their Uncle Jasper’s boy. He looked like something returning from the Ice Age, there seemed to be frozen sweat amongst his beard and shoulders, I guess he didn’t notice. Petey was a 5 foot 9 giant, barrel-chested, wide, kinda fat, his upper arms stuck out, not down. They protruded over and around his wide man-tits and muscles, then at the elbow, they dropped straight down. His face, hair, and eyes were dark and beautiful. And his toes pointed left and right as he would slowly waddle the famous LaRocco strut. His upper torso rotated left to right as if a Legoman. He wore shorts with an oversized and non-matching belt, the obvious choice of the mentally challenged freezer man. He didn’t conform to wearing the standard issue black dress shoes that the dirty companies paraded along the Row. Petey wore those boots with all the laces halfway up his shin tied tight and secure. He had some thick white socks showing but just to offset the nice boots... and this was the guy that may have said that day not long ago,

Hey kid, I wouldn’t stand there if I were you.

Four

The Row

A shack guarded the entrance to the Row with the typical arm that raises to allow entrance. A 10-foot fence hemmed up all around the gate and shack prohibited any walk-in entry except via a gate that was always padlocked. The guards inside were putty. Tony’s Uncle Jasper called them the minguas... they existed in their presence only, they were happy and proud to be part of the Row but didn’t guard anything. Too many others were always on the lookout for any strange truck or unknown company name that was wallpapered against its sides. The others were the real guards. You had to have a card to get into Produce Row, wholesale purchasers only. You had to be a business licensed and bonded to deal with perishable fruits, vegetables, milk, and the like. You never showed the card, unless you were strange to the putty men guards. The drivers were proud to display the paper card, neatly crammed into their wallets. But did it only upon a qualified request.

It was business as usual every day at the gate, here comes Falloni Brothers, a nice truck, a good-looking driver with his brother and navigator upfront... Charlie, the driver nods and grabs the rim of his dago cap to one of the putty men. Puttymanone is excited and delighted, almost gay to open the gate for the Falloni’s. Puttymanone says Morning Mr. Faylloni flitterly, then he passes a ticket of some sort over to puttymantwo who cradles it like the Magna Carta and deposits it into a Dutchmasters cigar box.... they were thorough, but Jasper was right, they were two minguas! The gate and shack were in constant traffic from the darkness of 2:30 in the morning, sometimes earlier, to about 8 or 9 am... if you were in the business and hadn’t made your run to the Row by 9?, you were on the B list.

Up on the docks and the length of the Row ran a walkway. Most times there was a guy or two not doing any loading or unloading but just standing near their dock entrances, sneering at each gate arrival. The Row was bustling most of the time. Any good thief knows that you can always rob someone or something easier under the cover of busy so they loomed along the eight-foot girth between the dock and the imaginary line. Sure, you could walk the row, but it was busy and some tough guys didn’t even let you pass. Some may be guarding some early morning arrivals, or drop-offs undercover of the night that were unspoken. If you just watched them, sometimes their over-aggressive stance implied there may be a "hot load of 21-25 shrimp that arrived last night or a truckload of french fries that mysteriously disappeared, driver included! A carefully inspected tintype snapshot of the whole operation would reveal a shabbily fenced compound, one way in and one way out, 15 dock doors on each side with a self-made lane in the middle made up of waiting delivery trucks, workers’ cars scattered about and Cadillacs and Lincolns. The black top was wretched from years of trucks in and out, loose gravel in some places, and yellow bumpers at the docks to help the inexperienced drivers to back in. Above most docks hung their colors, The Select Drink Co., Sea Pass, Middleton Meat Co., M and L Frozen, Tocco Foods" and even Pevely Dairy had a hub there. Each dock signified something if you had a trained eye. Close examination of the snapshot would reveal that all important docks had men on the docks and all the men’s eyes were affixed and stoic to the gate.

One way in, one way out.

Five

The Lack

Tony busted a left off of Market Street into the Row’s prison-like entrance. Then another left rolling straight into the gate reception lane. There was a van stopped at the gate for some reason. This would have made Tony and Sal stop. Tony was far too important to be held up at the gate, so he rolled around the outside never looking towards the minguas, and cut in front of the van as the gate went up, all at the warp speed of roughly 5 miles per hour, carelessly, as if to own the whole place.

Sal was stoic on the passenger side, in St. Michael the ArchAngel mode, he made eye contact without turning his head at every dock guy watching them enter. He measured the ones having the balls to look too long. Sal hadn’t had breakfast.

Tony didn’t care for the gravel and filthiness of the Row, plus he was in the Lack. An ‘88 short dawg is what they were called. The year was still 1988. It had 42 miles on it, Tony hadn’t gotten ahold of it yet to make it how he wanted it but it still stuck out like a new dime. It was silver metallic factory Caddy paint (for now), short and straight up front on the grille with the Cadillac leaf hood ornament sticking up but not overly ostentatious. That was from the factory and you leave that baby there even if you customize the car. The lines were the newest from Cadillac and they ditched the length of the mafia star car DeVille’s from the prior year and chopped about two feet off the trunk and then came straight down the back and tucked under, that’s where the short dawg came in. The back of the car was just FAT. It had the Caddy leaf that slid to the side to reveal the keyhole for the trunk and protect the orifice from the weather. The vehicle stood wide and fat and enveloped the tires, but the roofline was still high and boasting I’m a Cadillac He knew his cars, Tony. He was good at everything money and commerce and trade. He bought it in the heart of St. Louis off the showroom floor and drove the very experienced salesman nuts. Tony said Man, there’s a Park Avenue up at Ackerman’s near my shop for three grand less and it’s the same car! And it was, it was GM, the same body panels, paint, moonroof, it had the Buick red-velvet interior, you know the stuff, they were both beautiful cars and brand new. The salesman was Gregory Suin, a great suit, skinnier black guy, smooth, Benson and Hedges Menthol cigs, and he said: "maaan,... you go buy that Bruick and stick it in the drive, and in three years you know what you gonna have? You gonna have a Bruick! You buy my shorty and three years later? You still got the finest car ever made, ever... you gonna have a Lack in the driveway, Tony!"

Tony was the smartest of them all and knew he would never settle for the BREW-ICK. Black guys always purposely mispronounced Buick! They would always say BREW- ICK and thick too! They also loved to say FROOSE. Tony, my FROOSE is blowed when they knew it was fuse. Suin was cool. He knew Tony and Tony was sent down by a player with a name that meant something, so he proceeded to play his whole card and wrap this thing up asap. Suin said they had some Vogues ‘round back but he had to get them mounted on some wheels. He knew this would pique Tony’s interest. Tony had NO intention of rolling off the lot without wheels and tires on the Lack under any circumstances, so he busted out a stack for Suin to get the ball rolling and hitched a ride out of dodge back up to the Northside of the county. Before the night was over Tony picked up the 1988 Sedan DeVille, shorty. The wheels made the car and Tony knew they would. It looked good from the sides and monstrous from that one o’clock angel off the front or back. The Vogue tires were just the hottest thing ever and breathed Cadillac quality. They had a one-inch white wall and were molded. On the white wall it had V’s upside down and right side up for the circumference of the tire, they looked like diamond patterns. Now, the signature of the Vogue Tires Co. was, inside that whitewall and between the wheel was about a ⅜ inch bright, gold wall... they were the shit!!! The stack ($1000.00) that he gave Gregory Suin paid for the wheels on the side. Greg knew a guy that knew a guy. You understand? Dealership owners never know what’s going on in their place unless some porter or pissed-off secretary rats out. These wheels were the Enkei’s and up until Suin got that stack, they were probably someone else’s special order." They were brushed aluminum 17x8 inch size and beautiful! Suin got ‘em to put on some Cadillac factory caps to cover the lugs, again with that gold leaf factory Cadillac emblem. He insisted Tony may not have got those caps without him intervening. Tony left no one hanging, he read the writing on the wall and thanked him with the brother smack handshake, and the much love quick hug and popped another fifty in his palm for the caps and he was on Washington Street rolling North out of the city.

Italian guys didn’t get too much into the curb feeler thing on their Cadillacs. If they had, they may have scraped on the gravel heading down the Row, so Tony and Sal went fast not slow past the businesses. He was careful not to throw up any gravel on the Caddy. He had been here many times and was heading to Shaully’s. Their Uncle Pete would be there in the office with Joe Shaully. He angled off and made his own parking spot away but close enough to Shaully’s. Tony kangaroo’d the 6 steps up to the dock level and busted a left towards Shaully’s. In mid-stride, someone said, Hey tough guy, you gotta move that car I got trucks coming! Tony turned over his shoulder to see somebody, a nobody, wearing a worn-out Kroger hat and a fistful of papers motioning to point at his Caddy. The man didn’t move an inch but seemed to maybe hold his chest up a little???? Breakfast was served.

Just then, Sal laid his right hand against this poor bastard’s full head and face, it was an upward crushing smack to the neck and head! His legs crumbled like a puppet on a laxed string, his hat went flying into the air, and he dropped directly to the filthy, black shiny, concrete dock entrance... if I had to say... just about right on that imaginary line of no admittance! Sal stepped over him and turned to face all on the Row. He licked the belly of his right thumb and his eyes came up and he grew two inches. He waited for the next victim, and settled into protect mode, seeing no comers, he nonchalantly turned and walked towards Shaully’s. It became evident it was so busy and happened so quickly that no one really noticed what had happened.

No one was going to do anything about it anyway... that was just an appetizer Sal thought. Tony grabbed the door handle to Shaully’s and looked back to the man on the ground: Let me know when those trucks get here I’ll have my brother come out again and move my car, that be ok with you?

Sal gave two raps on the wooden civil war, 500-pound, half wood, half metal screen door. Then through an old,1000-pound, wooden glass office door that was obviously stolen. It showed the wreckage of the old company’s name etched beneath the newer sub-standard lettering Joe Shaully Refrigeration. Then, down a dark hall to the open office where Shaully was slouched behind his desk. Their Uncle Pete was seated in front of the desk. Tony was always scared of his Uncle. He was just hoping he wouldn’t get a smack for something and said:

Goo mornin’ unc’, and met him in his chair with a kiss on the cheek, reciprocated by his uncle.

Morning Mr. Shaully

Hey Tone replied Joe, How’s the radio business, I wanted to get an intercom system for out on the docks. Everybody wanted to pull and use Tony for bull shit that they didnt need or understand. I’ll keep an eye out for some speakers to quiet the request.

Uncle Pete: Salvator, vene ca’ (come here) Sal had no feelings such as Tony about any beating or smack of any sort from his uncle, he loved Uncle Pete and Pete loved him.

Hello Unc, good morning and leaned down to meet with a kiss and hug.

Sal went to stand back up from leaning in but Unc held him by the back of his neck with bear strength and stopped him halfway up and looked him in the eyes smiling with love:

"What did you have a little bite